The US Government Accountability Office has denied a protest filed by Sierra Nevada Corp seeking to challenge NASA’s award of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to Boeing and SpaceX.
The GAO said that it disagreed with…
The US Government Accountability Office has denied a protest filed by Sierra Nevada Corp seeking to challenge NASA’s award of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to Boeing and SpaceX.
The GAO said that it disagreed with Sierra Nevada’s arguments about flaws in NASA’s selection process. Specifically, the GAO states that it found no evidence to support Sierra Nevada’s argument that NASA failed to inform the bidders that the goal of obtaining an integrated crew transportation system no later than the end of 2017 was central to the evaluation.
Sierra Nevada had argued that the contract prioritised price as the primary evaluation criteria for the proposals and that its bid represented the second-lowest priced offer.
Sierra Nevada’s plan would have seen its Dream Chaser vehicle be launched via a ULA Atlas V rocket and then land horizontally on normal runways. It priced this at US$2.55bn.
Boeing’s offer also used an Atlas V to launch its CST-100 crew transportation system (a capsule spacecraft), which would then land using parachute and airbag systems. This plan was estimated to cost US$3.01bn.
SpaceX sought to keep its proposal in-house utilising both its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It put the cost at US$1.75bn.
According to the GAO, though NASA recognised Boeing’s higher price, the company’s proposal was considered to be the strongest of all three in terms of technical approach, management approach, and past performance. It was also thought to offer the crew transportation system with most utility and highest value to the government.
While the space agency recognized several favourable features in the proposals of both Sierra Nevada and SpaceX, it selected the latter as its lower price made it better value.
Sierra Nevada had also argued that NASA conducted an inadequate review of the realism of SpaceX’s price and overall financial resources, but again the GAO found no evidence of this.
In response to the GAO’s decision, Sierra Nevada stated: “At this stage, SNC is evaluating the GAO decision. While the outcome was not what SNC expected, we maintain our belief that the Dream Chaser spacecraft is technically very capable, reliable and was qualified to win based on NASA’s high ratings of the space system.”
